Award Winners

Aeromobil, Central Europe

In 2014, the first awards were held across Europe, Middle East and South America. Through crowdsourced nominations and voting we found some amazing brands and businesses – not least, Aeromobil, the flying car. Stefan Klein and his team were unknown outside their hometown of Bratislava. After winning the Gamechangers Awards 2014, the were suddenly on every news channel, from Al Jazeera to CNN, and attracting funding from the likes of Boeing and NASA. Similarly we want to find a celebrate the the best innovators in your market.

Taragui, South America

In Argentina, mate is the national drink. The award went to a new instant mix of mate, which has proved incredibly popular and disrupted the traditional methods of making the drink.

LC Waikiki, Turkey

LC Waikiki is a fast and forwards fashion retailer with light, vibrant stores across Turkey. It won the award for its fresh, modern approach to retailing, and accessibility to young people.

Last year’s Gamechangers Turkey Awards 2015 were dominated by a superb Turkish retailer and homeware brand Karaca, combining the best of contemporary lifestyles with local heritage. From the softest cottons to a new granite-based coating system for non-stick pans, the business has innovated every aspect of their business. Check out the latest online catalogue. The brand is still young but looking to grow rapidly across the world, searching for the right franchise partners although needs to strengthen its international propositions to do so.

The awards seek to find the most disruptive innovators in the market, be it through outthinking the competition the competition strategically, or innovating the brand and experience to engage customers more deeply. Awards are held throughout the world, based on the 10 big ideas in the “Gamechangers” book by Peter Fisk.

Other winners, and a summary of their innovation in their own words, included:

Metro – The Vision Award

As strong business partner of professionals for many years, we support the entrepreneurs in making a difference and in improving their business with the services and products we provide.The success stories that we witnessed through all these years inspired us to organize a social entrepreneurship competition.We aspired to support entrepreneurial business people who make economical, social and enviromental difference to their society and the world and to present new entrepreneurs as an example to society by encouraging them.The competition was open to the participation of anybody who possess quantifiable data on sustainability, customer satisfaction and reliability and is open to improve himself and his business, and it became a driving force to find creative and innovative solutions for social problems.We helped social entrepreneurship and people working in this field be heard.Besides the financial support we gave, we enabled their recognition through communication.

Adel – The Strategy Award

Adeland, the children’s brand that was launched by Adel Kalemcilik in July 2013, presents a brand new and entertaining world to children by creating its own characters, land and story, which is a first in industry.Adeland was inspired from a fantasy world depicted by children under pedagog supervision. Children discover the entertaining and colorful world of Adeland through cartoons, games and video clips at www.adeland.com web site.Thus, Adeland allows children to improve their creativity, enhance their imagination with hero characters and create a world of their own with their favorite colors.Adeland brand has broken new ground in its industry by creating its own world and characters and has differantiated from competition by adding “distinctive qualities”.

LC Waikiki – The Discovery Award

The fashion retailer extended its e-commerce channel to 13 new countries and starting sales in these new markets.The countries where online sales have opened are: Azebaijan, Bahrain, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.We serve in English in these countries, service in local languages will start soon. Online foreign sales turnover is aimed to be $20 million by the end of 2016.Kiosk-tablet and smartphone utilization will begin in domestic stores in the near future in order to support e-commerce.By this means, our staff will be able to make online inventory check for our customers who are in store and they will be able to direct the customers to our web site if required.Additionally, lcwaikiki.com is preparing to go online in Russia soon.The difference this innovation creates: Increasing penetration in new markets entered by retailing, creating brand recognition and sales channels in countries where stores are not present.

Karaca – The Brand Award

While almost all brands in Turkey that are in the business of dining, kitchen and decoration tried to reach the target audience through recipes, Karaca embraced the presentation of these dishes.Karaca embraced “dining table culture”, something much more important than good cooking, by this means.Therefore, Karaca has set the bar in this field.For the first time in Turkey, seninsofran.com web site is arranged in order to inspire the user and to create content on dining table preparation.

In terms of some of the product innovations, such as non-stick pans. Our customers had health concerns particularly about the easily scratching nonstick/nonflammable coating in pots-pans group.Difficulty of cleaning and sticking was the problem in ceramic products.We developed a product that removes this concern. We made the products 7 times more durable than nonstick/nonflammable and easily cleanable and not sticking by granite coating.We described the new product to consumers very well so that we persuaded them to use granite products by resolving their concerns.Opening up a new segment in cooking group, we made the whole industry divert to granite.We gave rise to a great additional turnover that was previously nonexistent.

Vakıf Emeklilik – The Innovation Award

Our goal with Veplus wearable technology application is to help our customers have a healthy life by utilizing the innovations of the digital world and to present personalized services.As Vakıf Emeklilik, we began the era of personalized insurance by using wearable technology products with Veplus.We took the first step for personalization and personalized applications that are some of the most critical topics in transition of insurance.We aspired to show the people that we are always there for them by raising their quality of life and we aimed to be a lifelong companion.Our users can follow the health information that we regularly send over the application, can keep track of daily number of steps, calories taken/burned, exercises, sleep and pulse data and benefit from life insurance products and services that we will personalize, due to our wearable technology application “Veplus” that works on Samsung smart watches and Android smartphones.Life insurance risk acceptance procedures has changed and personalized insurance era has begun with Veplus project.Understanding and awareness of insurance will increase, insurance would only be by one’s side on the bad day perception will change and insurance will become more accessible and sincere with this application.Since an application that is more sincere and highly interactive than the relation between the customer and the insurer did not exist until today, personalized services, personalized products and privileges will stand out and awareness of insurance will improve with the application.

DeFacto – The Communication Award

The fashion retailer knew that one sided communication is not possible with Young DeFactians who has an average age of 24 years.We created an extraordinary communication channel as a result of painstaking work.We named it “Depar TV” after our employer brand “Geleceğe Depar”.A DeFacto employee is not only the audience of this channel but also the source of news, innovation, happiness, improvement and communication.In other words, members of DeFacto are also the stars, the producer, the director and the viewers of this channel. Apart from being an actor of DeparTV, the greatest difference we made is ease of accessibility.Depar TV can be viewed from a number of different channels such as in shuttle buses during a ride, online, from a mobile phone or from TV’s at common spaces and its ratings surpass the competition.In addition, Depar TV provides the essential inspiration at DeFacto.

Karaca – The Experience Award

We allocated 140 m2 of space at our 540 m2 store which opened in Bursa Anatolium Shopping Mall and we turned it into a workshop where 14 people can cook together at the same time.We organized courses and events such as pastry, world cuisines in the school while shopping continued in the store and we gave a special experience to our customers.At the same time, we made deals with a number of companies and clubs and contributed to our store traffic.

Kalekim – The Impact Award

Kalekim has taken the product and application under scope of warranty in ceramic applications, a first in construction chemicals industry and has opened the door to a new era for craftsmen and consumers.Craftsmen Warranted application presents the best execution with craftsmen trained and certified by Kalekim in all indoor and outdoor (i.e. bathroom, kitchen, balcony and terrace) ceramic applications.Through the Craftsmen Warranted service, Kalekim has the goal of creating new business oportunities for Masters Club craftsmen by increasing their preferability , enhancing how consumers perceive the quality of ceramic applications, and reducing application related errors by maintaining correct product, correct application and correct solution system.Therefore Kalekim brings a brand new service network to the industry.Connection with consumers is also re-enforced with high customer satisfaction presented.

TEB – The Leadership Award

Innovation Management at TEB involves all stakeholders, in other words the employees, universities, customers, university students, suppliers and entrepreneurs, under Human Recourses leadership.We developed Intrapreneurship Program, first of its kind in Turkey and in the industry.We have to be nimble in order to respond to customer demands, to rapidly adapt changes: So we created the environment for employees to quickly put their projects into practice by acting like an entrepreneur in corporate setting.•We are training ‘internal entrepreneurs’ who can create and materialize projects that may change the future of the bank.•We strengthen their entrepreneurial muscles through very special trainings, mentoring and coaching.•We create environments for our entrepreneurs so that they can find the right people for their projects and hire them like an entrepreneur.•We send the champion entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley in order to contribute to their projects.